blink
by paradises
Summary: "You're never going to be good enough, and you never have, and you've tried so hard ( not really ; you've just wasted your time, pretending, basing your life off a middle school reputation ) and it doesn't really matter anymore. Nothing manners, and your life is over." -— meena, eli, and the glossy steps of perfection, tumbling down in a blink.


**notes |** so, i'm sort of in the mood for writing oneshots that are sort of long; a few days ago, i wrote a oneshot that was around four thousand, two hundred words and it wasn't that long but it's much longer than anything i've written, and then two days ago i wrote something that was around twelve thousand words ( personal best ) but this is around six thousand words so i'm going down because today's a school day, and i only had an hour to write this up, :) oh, & second person is fun!

**warning;** be warned about sp&g mistakes. i have the bad habit of writing most of my oneshots on my phone, therefore there are going to be tons of mistakes, since i've turned off spellcheck. please leave a review, if you'd like to, :)

**dedication;** this is dedicated to all of my asian friends; i'm not asian ( i'm french&swedish ) but my father treats me like i'm an asian kid, and whatever i do, it's never going to be enough.

**.:all the little lights:.  
**meena / eli

And, like usual, your life starts out with not being good enough;

Of course, like any typical Asian, you can expect as much to happen, though you've always wished to be the best, to reach that ethereal point of perfection where you would be known to be the smartest person in school, chosen for a fellowship at John Hopkins' dermatology program after graduating from Harvard in two years at the age of fourteen, a child prodigy nonetheless, and having your children get into the best colleges, and your parents proud of you.

Sometimes, in your dreams, you've imagined those glowing, beaming smiles of your parents as they see you read off your valedictorian speech; in Briarwood Octavian Day, at the undergraduate program of Harvard, class 2016, and at your fellowship at John Hopkins; they're proud of you, and they're not yelling, always telling you to be a better, and then stepping back, saying that what they're doing now? It's for your own good, of course.

In your sleep, you always picture being that person that your math teacher calls out, saying that you got the perfect score on the latest math test, and soon enough in the morning, you're all excited because you actually think that you did well on that test, and then it ends up that you've received a sixty percent, the only D in your class, and it feels as though you're breaking, because this isn't what you've worked for.

Then again, perfection? It's almost impossible, but for you, it soon becomes of the utmost importance and it's hard, impossible, for you to think back to those days of elementary school, wasteful and dazzling, like Blair Waldorf in France, running away from her problems, but in a way, your problems were nonexistent back then.

You're just sitting there in ninth grade, sometime near the end of September, legs crossed and typing onto a computer screen, and they're daring you to delete everything, to give up everything you've worked for, because right now, it's not looking too good for you; and even though you try ( not really, but people think that you try ) you're never going to end up on the wall.

And it starts off in the summer before kindergarten, when you were actually good little girl, a good little sweetheart, and went along the lines of this;

( I can't survive this two month trip to India without my book. Without _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_, I will be left pursuing vocabulary endeavors. My mother purchased a vocabulary workbook for me from an airport bookstore, and expects I'll memorize everything in a week. However, against my mother's wishes, I am currently engrossed in Harry Potter.

"Meena!" I hear my mother calling me in the distance.

"What?" I reply, hoping not to be discovered. I quickly close my Harry Potter book and flip open to a random page in my vocabulary workbook.

"The neighbor's children are outside. Go play with them."

"But why? It's warm outside! And Shivani gets to stay inside." I pout, annoyed.

"You can study later. Right now, you must play outside. Also, you know that Shivani has to study for her exams."

"Yes, Mom." I wish to remain within the cool, air-conditioned bungalow, but I may not.

Before I exit, I place my head on the ledge outside the window, checking the temperature. I feel the wind start to pick up, its speed never ceasing as strands of hair blow into my face. Adjacent sounds crescendo when children run onto the street, barefoot and giggling. Four girls grasp each other's hands and form a circle, dancing. I don't comprehend the purpose of their dancing, whether it is a religious ritual or a mere game. Just as I am about to inspect the mint plant, the window slams shut. Exasperated, I reopen the French window, step out, and perceive that the wind's strength has increased. Heat rays still shine down upon the awning, seeming to never cease until night, much to my chagrin. I would prefer walking about on a pleasant day, perhaps with a chilly breeze; though, this is too much to ask for in a humid climate. Numerous clouds are forming above, their darkness foreboding. Stepping farther outside, I inhale the fresh valley air around me, sniffing when pollen enters my nostrils. I walk farther onto the pavement, when something falls on my shoulder. Turning my head slightly, I see the small droplet of water on my shoulder, and look back at the floor, seeing the drizzling in its premier stage. I reach the four girls, and stand awkwardly outside their closed circle.

"Vanakkum," I mutter.

"Vanakkum," they all reply civilly. Moments later, I wish that I could return indoors as I disgustedly wipe the sweat from my brow. The children don't seem to want to include me in their group, and I do not wish to dance with them either. So, I begin examining the ground, thinking about the life forms I am observing; mainly red ants.

Suddenly, the children stop, and I break away from my trance of staring at the ever so exciting ground. The rain is falling faster now, and before I know it, footsteps are pattering behind me as the other girls run inside. I try to turn around and follow them, but my entire body is paralyzed with fear. For the first time in my six years, I feel terrified. I've never been stuck in a monsoon before. What if I drown? I don't even know how to swim! I think to myself.

"Meena!" I hear my mother calling me; this time I'm thankful that she knows where I am. When I don't respond, she runs outside and drags me into the car.

Inside the car, I can hear my mother speaking to Shivani now, about what's going to happen pertaining to our location during the monsoon.

"We'll be staying at Hotel Leela for about a day or two, just until the flood stops long enough for a plane to take off," my mother optimistically states.

I doubt that she is right, due to the colossal size of the flood and how the water level is steadily increasing. By the time we reach the hotel, it's already late in the afternoon due to the heavy traffic. When I look out the window in our suite, I see several bright cars passing by the dull grey slums, somehow catching my eye. The flood water has increased drastically; now, it would be almost up to my eyes if I was still outside. I wonder if someone will come to save the slum residents, but after a few minutes, I see that they are left to fend for themselves. A gaunt mother is flailing in the road's water, carrying her children above her head to increase their chances of survival. Many men are trying to build makeshift boats, but they break apart too easily.

A girl who looks around six or seven is crying, and has her head barely above the water. I watch in horror as she disappears below. When the girl doesn't reemerge after a few minutes, I wonder if she swam away, or if someone saved her. I try not to think that something else could have happened, something like death. Even though I had never seen this girl in my life, I see tears streaking down my face in the window. In a moment, I feel as almost everything around me goes blank, as my eyes focus on the water, where hundreds of bodies now lay motionless. Some of the bodies have eyes still open, and it's more terrifying than anything I've ever seen before. The eyes are rolled upwards, as if they were sending a message to the twenty four Tirthankars before their death. It's macabre, and a shiver crawls up my spine. The bodies' eyes seem to be staring into the depths of my soul sending a message of unspoken words.)

And, then it ends. You barely remember your childhood — but there are flashes of memories, like cruises when you were six years old. There was a girl named Marisa, Virginia's granddaughter, and the two of you played card games; she would always win, and you played Princess and Lady in Waiting, and you would always be the lady in waiting, because even then, you were never good enough, not even for other children.

.

Dating Eli isn't as though you really like him; after all, his amount of eyeliner and lipstick is completely disgusting and you're sort of acting like a beard after all, and you never find yourself slowly falling for him. Your life has never been a stereotypical love story, complete with the cheesy special effects and the perfect ( rehearsed ) lines. But, you date Eli, and continue to date him through the second year of high school in order to be, in a way, defiant.

He's perhaps the most defiant person at your school, though his parents donate way too many libraries and donations to various schools internationally that he could never be expelled; you sort of envy him, because your parents aren't that rich. You're not here on scholarship of course, but as an Asian, you're expected to be the best at everything you do.

It doesn't really matter — you were never going to be good enough, and time flashes by; you remember skipping kindergarten, for once, smarter than the rest of the children. You remember orientation into first grade, when you watched the chorus with your mother; she started singing along, and you silenced her. She'll never forgive you for that, for being an ungrateful little wretch and you wish that you could start everything over, from that point in time.

First grade is also when your mother ends up in the hospital. She's had several knee surgeries before, riding on this sort of motorcycle contraption in India, but apparently something happened again, and you still remember the moments of panic in your old house in Roselle, when the alarms started sounding in the distance, and you, the ungrateful little wretch, just wanted to sleep. Your older sister, Shivani, who's twelve years old, or was, at the time, was trying to help and soothe your mother, but your father just didn't seem to care.

You tried to ignore everything and fall back to sleep. First grade is also when you realize that it's actually hard to make friends, to be nice to other people isn't really enough, not anymore. There's one girl; her name is Kelsey Woodbury, and she has strawberry blonde hair, but she has more friends of course, being that nice, pretty, popular girl; but, you don't meet her until the second grade. First grade is bouts of being bullied by a girl named Marisa who always steals your lunch, and then your lunch money, having to stand against the wall for not listening to the teacher and supposedly talking while the teacher was talking ( but the people who tattled on you? they were just big fat liars ), and it was horrible. You couldn't wait for it to be over, and now when you think back on those horrible, but still childhood days, you want to take back the time, seize it.

Second grade is when you meet Kelsey Woodbury and her little group of friends — you also seem to encounter all the problems of life, along with a wonderful teacher, whose name you can't seem to remember, but she was the one that traveled around the world, and;

Everything goes by in a flash; you move to Westchester, a rich little town that ruins your life, and in fourth grade, you meet a little girl named Massie Block who ruins your life even more. Nevertheless, you have some sort of friend circle; Layne, Heather, and Claire who you really can never depend on in the end. And, life sucks; but then, your parents tell you to write something about the first days of school, and it went like;

(Fingers tighten relentlessly, tugging at the frayed edges of a violet backpack, tarnished from the years of being stuffed into marred blue lockers, papers and pencil crumbs gathering near the bottom, falling into pieces. Warning tones strike three minutes later and an accumulation of students, particularly those coming from the sophomore locker wing flood the area, increasing the difficulty of reaching the first period class on time; though a leniency period is given, it's always been preferential, to me, to reach every class on time, in order to obtain the greatest amount of information possible. Maps stand out near the ends of each hallway and wing, colorful banners standing out from the more drab looking walls.

Desks are set up near the front of each of the classrooms, black and white photographs for assigned seats easily visible though I try to avoid the general accumulation of crowds, instead making my way to one of the ends of the school before realizing that my first class of the day, scheduled to be AP World History is supposed to be in E263, upon the second floor — seven minutes earlier, I had entered Barrington High School through the entrance of the first floor, in which staircases led directly to the math wing. Trying to find my way back to the math wing proves not to be so much of a difficult task as for the two previous years of seventh and eighth grade, I had taken an extended mathematics class in that very hallway; recollections and memories flood, colors standing out and certain images of a less stressful life in a yearning way remain embedded underneath my eyelids, permanently and everlasting. Perhaps it would be beneficial, to keep the recollections as I progressed forward in life.

Stopping slightly near the end of a less crowded hallway, I pull out a crumpled map from the bottom of my backpack, hoping that the classroom number that I had previously memorized only the night before was still fresh instead of tainted, forgotten and scrambled through the rest of the classroom numbers that I would be going to later today. The warning tone chimes again and I look up at the clock, recognizing the familiar bell that signaled one minute until the bell would ring, and a tardy would be given to those who arrived at class later.

Looking around frantically, it was almost a miracle — colored signs that are hung up at the ends of each of the hallways, and near the end of the West Wing of the second floor hung signs pointing towards the East Wing. Logically speaking, I would have previously assumed and did presume during the walkthrough day which though was only three days previous to this first day, felt much longer, that the East Wing would have been on the opposite side of the school, though the Central Wing with the high population traffic would have been a major obstruction due to the abundance of lockers there.

Quickly, I make a last minute decision to follow my gut instincts and walk up the ramp, avoiding people and swerving past those nonchalant others (perhaps, upperclassmen who have memorized their way around the school already who carry cups of Starbucks in one hand, dangling a Coach purse containing their newest iPhone) who don't seem to have a care in the world whether they are late to class or not. By the time I reach the E200's, I make a mad dash towards the classroom, the second one on the left side and recognize it to be the one in which I had taken the ACT through Northwestern when I had been ten.

Walking inside, I recognize a few of my friends — Willa, Amy, Grace, Heather who have saved a seat for me near the center of the classroom, and I gladly sit down, crossing my legs and waiting quietly after the bell rings, making it in the nick of time. The Pledge of Allegiance goes on but the desks are so tightly packed together that it was hard to stand up fully and I ended up almost having my knees crooked as I uttered the familiar words softly, as the majority of the students excluding the center row decided to sit down during the Pledge, ignoring the announcements as the teacher had not yet arrived in the room.

I took the opportunity to converse with those around me though none of them looked the least bit confident to utter a single world; instead, I managed to calmly glance around the room and take in the scenery and decorations that had been changed since I had seen this room a few years prior to the current date. There was slight writing on the whiteboards, mostly on the left side though the right was left blank — perhaps to keep record of notes, and papers were stacked one on top of another; I could see the words syllabus and homework bolded at the chalkboard near the back of the classroom.

Moments later, Mr. Parolin walked into the room; "Hello, I'm Mr. Parolin. This is your AP World History Class." In the next fifteen minutes I had learned that one — none of freshmen were supposed to be here as they would all likely fail the test; two is that there will be a final exam near the end of the year that will account for twenty percent of the final semester grade and that there will be eighty percent of the other, including essays, weekly quizzes, and tests. Words like schadenfredue and eleemosynary are scattered throughout the conversation, or more of the way the teacher talks towards the class; a syllabus is handed out, and I notice that the AP exam is not mandatory — however, of course, for college credit and to live up to my parent's expectations, taking it and getting a 5, is essential.

For the rest of the class, the homework is outlined — the class is to copy down the vocabulary terms from chapter one and chapter two in the "Ways of the World" History textbook; the length and the fine print, along with the intense vocabulary and weekly quizzes (sometimes more than once a week) seem to be intimidating, and I have to reassure myself that perhaps it won't be so bad after all. This class is my first AP class, and it's mandatory to make a good first impression upon the teacher and the colleges to show that I is and had been mentally ready to take an AP course. I'm aware that in most high schools, classes in these levels are not allowed for incoming freshmen students yet there are only a hundred select students from typically those who received a twenty eight out of thirty on the history placement exam.

I barely remember middle school however, yet the DBQ's are still in the forefront of my mind after we were handed out packets for this class of history over the summer to complete for practice and keeping certain facts memorized that would be needed during this year. The bell rings and I walk with one of my friends, Willa, to our mathematics class taught by Mrs. Cagney which I remember to be in room W-217 which was the exact same class that I had taken last year for the eighth grade extended math class at the high school; she is standing by the door and within the first fifteen minutes of class, we're already given assigned seats.

Though assigned seats are not always preferential for my tastes, it always depends upon who is sitting around you — this time, Augustine is sitting on my right, Nika on my left, Willa next to her and in front is Akshara and Megan, all classmates who were in my mathematics class last year and familiar faces are always a good sign. During the class period, I only look at the clock three times, located near the west side of the classroom, after realizing that I needed to purchase one more graphing notebook as the year progressed. Our textbooks were compared with the teacher's edition, and it's interesting to see all the different types of covers that were used for the same textbook over the years; some of my classmates have a dictionary based cover, with a blank bright red cover while others have the more typical Algebra & Trigonometry cover with the author's and publisher's name below, along with the general course information inside.

There is no homework assigned on the first day, though we are given five sheets of paper, and five blank answer sheets used for a scanatron. Mrs. Cagney tells us to finish as many problems as possible so that she can place us in groups accordingly to determine our skill level and see where us, in general as a class, needs to start the review of the extended topics and progress to the trigonometry information later on during the semester, around the third week of September if everything goes according to plan.

The pretests come in different colors of paper — one is a light pink or a salmon perhaps, a light yellow, a lilac green, a light blue, and a light purple; they are all written with our names at the top, and usually consist of a following problem sheet with five to seven problems. When Mrs. Cagney tells us to start, I realize that I haven't remembered some of the old formulas and definitions of certain terms from the previous year, and made a mental note to revise tonight.

The bell rang when I had one sheet left to finish, and I made my way with Akshara and Willa to our English class; we got lost and ended up coming back to the same math classroom that we had started at three minutes earlier, and then tried exiting the building before remembering that Freshmen English Gifted Honors was in E355 on the third floor, at the opposite side of the building. By the time that we had finally reached the classroom, the three of us had gone up three flights of stairs, two on the way down and one on the way up and the classroom was empty — we made our way to the classroom opposite, where a production from BHS TV was being shown near the front of the room; "Get In the Know".

The people on the screen were giving information about the sports season in the fall but I remembered that badminton — the only sport in high school that I had been planning to try out for was in the spring; Akshara paid more attention to the golf tryouts as she had made the team only days prior to the first day of school and Willa was already on the school's varsity swim team. The television broadcast lasted for around three minutes, and the sports section was hilarious; we made our way back to the English classroom where we were allowed to choose our seats for the first day and we didn't have enough time to do the "speed dating" assignment.

Instead, we all took out a loose leave piece of paper and on direction from the teacher, Mrs. Oberg, told us to write about what we stand on our level as a reader or a writer, and what kind of books we like to write. It's a hard to decision, to perhaps name one of my favorite books as I like books of a wide variety of genres — I appreciate the good old classics, especially such novels as War & Peace and Emma perhaps some Sense & Sensibility though novels that are classics are not always preferable to my reading tastes as The Grapes of Wrath and The Old Man and the Sea were more dull reads that were only read due to class assignments. I've been reading a lot more of Shakespeare pieces lately, and King Lear has to be one of my favorites because of the way that none of the characters are exactly perfect.

At the beginning of the play, in Act I, Cordelia seemed to almost be a Cinderella character in distress with the two evil older sisters, Goneril and Regan who were fake and were lying about how much they loved their father in order to receive more land; however, later on, it is shown that Cordelia has committed sins of her own and the characters are very well fleshed out. Near the end of the play, it is shown that Edmund, the main antagonist who is an illegitimate son, therefore shunned and thought of as barbaric whose love is vied for from both Goneril and Regan turns out to be sort of a good character, though not as honest as his brother Edgar.

As a writer, I have been doing Nanowrimo since 2008, for around the past five years but when I first started out with Nanowrimo I did the younger version in which you could choose your word count for the creative writing novel in which you could practically write anything as long as it was connected and it had to be that word count reached by the end of November 30th started at the very first day of November, and no pre-written work could be submitted. If you completed it successfully, a copy of your novel would be mailed out to you after some editing programs and cover programs, for a low cost, were used in the spring months.

I never got more than around fifty thousand words, but more recently, especially during the years of high school, I'm not quite sure how much information I'll be able to write and whether I'll even have time since Nanowrimo is near the weeks before midterms start and that period will be especially stressful though badminton season only begins during the spring months.

After the period of English, I had to go to Digital Arts; personally, I'm not exactly an artist and as soon as I made my way to the class, I realized that we would also be using more of the traditional tools for drawing and painting rather than the stylus, pads, and the program of Photoshop on the Macs given to each student. Nevertheless, it seemed like an enjoyable class and though I was taken it as a Pass/Fail course (as to not affect my GPA in a lower way as all of my other classes are honors and/or AP classes), second semester would be Honors Music Appreciation which is a class I'm more familiar with since I've been doing music theory since the age of five in yearly tests with the IMSTA association for those in intermediate and advanced levels; this year, I'll be testing for level twelve, and then move on to the advanced levels as I have been doing piano since I had turned four and a half.

After digital arts, I'm forced to check my schedule to remember which class is next; it turns out to be French II Honors which is strangely enough in the same floor, but in the West Wing; while walking towards the class, I see Sasha, one of my friends from my French class in eighth grade who's also in fifth hour.

Three minutes before the bell rings, we manage to make it into class; the assigned seats are posted clear, black and white, at the back of the room; a large crowd of students, around twenty or so of them (a difference from last year's French class of eight) are gathered around. We go over the syllabus, and before I know it, orchestra comes along; the rest of the days goes by in a blur, in short flashes and the next day comes along.

/

The second day of high school proves to be slightly more stressful than the first as one of my friends, Willa, is not taking the morning bus with me and she was the one out of the two of us who was able to find the way to the first period AP World History class; having slept later last night due to the four hours of homework; around the same as the maximum number of hours of homework that I would have in middle school though I know that high school's maximum will perhaps be an all-nighter, especially around the times of the AP Exams, finals, and midterms; I feel groggy as I make my way to the class, which I manage to do so on time though the bus had arrived late to the school, around 7:14 A.M. and the bell was to ring in five minutes from then.

During the AP World History class we took notes on the Paleolithic period that covered three eras, especially we focused on the push and pull factors of the era. The theory "Out of Africa" meant that human beings evolved in Africa and wandered off, populating the entire planet — man fully evolves, and then migrates.

The other theory was "multi-regional" and meant that people began to migrate before fully evolving; throughout the class we focused on the point of origin that both theories agreed on, which was Africa, the push and pull factors because the nomadic people were forced to move for gathering since once they had depleted the area of its resources, the herd would move somewhere else and these nomadic people were forced to follow the herd because that was their food supply.

Also, the major concept that changed (literally) everything was the development of systematic agriculture, which meant that you had a system devised for planting crops and raising animals. This led to occupational diversity, permanent structures which led to towns and cities being built, a better developed government with different levels, more developed art rather than just simple cave paintings, the first written language that wasn't a primitive writing system of scratching things into the walls, a barter economy, and the simple division of social classes, along with more developments and changes.

After AP World History was over, I went to math class and this time it was easier to find my way around the school since Willa and I were aware where the proper staircases, ramps, and hallways with less traffic were by now; we finished the pretests that we hadn't done yesterday and reviewed some of the relations. Most of the information, I was familiar with though I didn't remember some of the more in depth differences between the reflection mappings and the permutation functions and the exact definitions that we had been forced to memorize at the beginning of seventh grade, two years prior to the current date.

After the notes on reflections, Mrs. Cagney said that she would have the papers graded by hand by tomorrow, and that we should check the Infinite Campus for the pretest grades — no homework, however. English consisted of getting to know the people around you for the most part, after being assigned seats and given our first long term project that was due on October 3rd communications with a partner about a certain book that we are reading together, and at intervals discuss in depth our emotions about the book, but the most preferable is texting, IM, or google chat rather than e-mail because it's more of paragraphs rather than back and forth conversation.

There shouldn't be too much text speak, but on the other hand, completely formal language is not necessarily required since such components as sentence structure and word choice will not be counted for our grade. After English, Digital Arts involved playing around with Photoshop for the first fifteen minutes and some of the beginning students including myself watched the videos and took a small quiz about which tools to use for which functions and we'll be playing around for the first week or so and our first long term assignment will only be assigned on the following Monday which should give enough time to become familiar with the Photoshop application on the Mac, something that I've never used before.

.

And then, everything crashes from there — because that's what you wrote from your parents, in the point of view from a pretty, little girl who just wants everybody to like her BUT YOU'VE NEVER BEEN THAT PERSON and you're ugly and horrible and deserve to die; and report cards start coming and you're not going to even graduate, are you Meena? You're never going to be good enough, and you never have, and you've tried so hard ( not really ; you've just wasted your time, pretending, basing your life off a middle school reputation ) and it doesn't really matter anymore. Nothing manners, and your life is over.

(And the steps to perfection; they're glossy and ethereal, climbing them lifting your spirits, but careful, darling. They're also slippery.)


End file.
